Between Elderly Parents and Grandchildren—Geographic Proximity and Trends in Four-Generation Families

Abstract

In an ageing society, families may have an important role in the caretaking and well-being of the elderly. Demographic changes have an impact on the size and structure of families; one aspect is how intergenerational support is distributed when there is a need for support to both older and younger generations at the same time. Another vital aspect of the provision of care for the elderly is geographic proximity. This study is oriented towards the potential "both-end carers" i.e. persons who have grandchildren in potential need of care while still having living ageing parents. The incidence of having grandchildren and having living parents at age 55 and the proximity between generations is described using Swedish register data. The results show that the share of 55-year-olds who are grandparents decreased dramatically from 70% to 35% between 1990 and 2005. As expected, more 55-year-olds have living parents-a proportion that increased from 37% to 47% during this period. As a result of delayed childbearing among the children of these cohorts, the likelihood of belonging to a four-generation family among 55-year-olds has not increased, despite increased longevity. Furthermore, most individuals live within daily reach of their kin and no evidence was found of a trend of increasing geographic distances between generations.

A Life-Course Analysis of Geographical Distance to Siblings, Parents, and Grandparents in Sweden

“…The study results show that most people live close to their kin and are consistent with previous research on Swedish family geography (Malmberg & Pettersson, ; Fors & Lennartsson, ; Lundholm & Malmberg, ; Lundholm, ; Svensson et al ., ) and are broadly consistent with findings from the Netherlands and other European countries. The empirical results also highlights the important role that demography plays in kin availability at higher ages (cf.…”

Longitudinal data for interdisciplinary ageing research. Design of the Linnaeus Database

“…Current research in the programme includes studies on intergenerational distances [19], but also on the effects of network and social support on health status and retirement. The data on family relations also permit comparative sibling studies within the ALC programme.…”

Family Life Course and the Timing of Women's Retirement – a Sequence Analysis Approach

“…In this study, the analyses are based on data from the Linnaeus database (Malmberg et al ., ) and contain information from Swedish administrative registers provided to the research group by Statistics Sweden. The data include annual information on the whole population resident in Sweden.…”

“…As a consequence, intergenerational relations would be more important as compared to intragenerational ones. However, Swedish data show a decreasing number of three‐generation and four‐generation families due to growing intergenerational spacing (Lundholm & Malmberg, ).…”